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FRIO Insulin Cooling Wallets: A game changer for insulin safety

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Mrs. Annie Baganzi handing over 14 Frio insulin colling wallets to Dr. Catherine N.at Nsambya Hospital

Kindly allow me to explain the value of the Frio insulin cooking wallets by taking you back to high school biology. When the food we eat is digested, any carbohydrates consumed are digested or broken down into glucose within the digestive system. The glucose is then absorbed into the bloodstream for distribution to the body cells that need it to provide energy. Insulin is a hormone that functions to facilitate glucose uptake from the blood into the body cells. Without insulin, this process breaks down, causing high blood sugars, a classic symptom of Diabetes Mellitus (DM). Injecting insulin is one of the therapies for managing DM.

Being protein in nature, insulin needs to be produced, transported, stored and generally maintained under strict temperature control to retain its functionality and effectiveness. The recommended temperature for storage and transport of insulin is between 2–8°C, while the temperature while in use is recommended to be below room temperature which is less than 30°C as recommended by the East Africa Diabetes Study Group (EADSG) in a published study.

As temperatures rise due to climate change, it gets difficult to keep insulin in use safely below 30°C in our hot environments. Frio insulin cooling wallets are an innovative technology solution that uses gel crystals which absorb water, swell and compact it such that the liquid cannot escape. This way, the crystals form a gel that holds onto the water longer as it evaporates very slowly. This keeps the temperature cool longer, typically between 18 and 26°C for a minimum of 45 hours even in hot environments like we have in many parts of Africa. More information on the Frio insulin cooling wallets can be found here.

The best part about this innovation is that it keeps insulin safe, without needing to dunk it into bottles of water or next to ice, which can be dangerous for insulin users. The water is gelled within the crystals and therefore does not directly contact the medicine. This is recommended because storing insulin that is in use on ice or water often causes dilution and contamination and has been found to be a contributor to development of abscesses and lipohypertrophy.

The Frio packs in the picture above were donated on 10th June 2023 by Ms. Cynthia Tysick of the University of Buffalo in New York alongside friends and well wishers, and facilitated by FRIO, who gave a whopping 40% discount to enable 40 individuals in Gulu and Kampala districts to get them. We are so very grateful for this life-changing innovation and look forward to a future where all people living with diabetes in Africa can access such valuable technologies.


References

  1. Bahendeka, S., Kaushik, R., Swai, A.B. et al. EADSG Guidelines: Insulin Storage and Optimisation of Injection Technique in Diabetes Management. Diabetes Ther 10, 341–366 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13300-019-0574-x
  2. What temperature does the FRIO maintain accessed at https://friouk.com/faq-items/how-long-is-in-use-insulin-safe-in-a-frio-when-do-i-top-upre-activate-my-frio/ on 24/08/2023.

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